


Converse

by Missne



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Implied Character Death, Implied Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 22:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missne/pseuds/Missne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a pair of Converse is the only solid thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Converse

She was crying. At least she thought so... Her face was a bit numb.

Outside, the cold rain was pouring down, and her clothes were soaked. The little shack where she was curled up didn't give much cover from the cold, but at least it no longer rained straight on her, only a rusty hole in the corner of the makeshift roof leaked through. The puddle beneath the drizzle was surrounded by ice.

She didn't know how long she had walked, or how far she had gotten since that day. A week now, maybe a little more. She was starving, her stomach felt like is was gnawing on itself, but at least she had a never ending supply of fresh water. Leaning a little forward on the pile of creaking tires she was sitting on, she stuck her head out in the downpour and looked to the right. At a distance she could see yellowish streetlights gleam in the railroad tracks. It looked like a bigger gathering of houses than what she had passed earlier today, the broken down gas station with the locked up shop. She probably could have entered, had she been stronger, but for now she only looked at the dirty windows, deeming the risk of cuts in her condition to be far too great a risk. And so she kept on walking.

Absentmindedly she plucked with the sole of her left shoe. It was a pair of pink Converse, and she had gotten them on her sixteenth birthday a few months ago, in the heat of summer. Before it all happened. The sole was tearing off fast, clearly they weren't made for walking miles and miles along frozen railway tracks, day in and day out, in the rain. Or maybe they just couldn't hold together through all her stumbling and falling. After all, her knees were just as torn up, dried up blood now spreading down the front of her jeans because of the rain.

Leaning back on the corrugated metal that made up the back wall of the little shed, she closed her eyes for a moment. The lights couldn't be more than a few miles away now. The ground was flat here, not like the hills back home. She should be able to make it – after all, even if she didn't, at least she wasn't still at home. She should have left sooner, if she knew.

If only she knew how they really felt, she would have never said anything. She would never have invited Amy over so defiantly.

She should have known better, but how was she to know that they were THAT scared? The initial reaction was silence, then plastered smiles and politeness. They fled to her room after dinner, giggling at the adult's looks, never expecting this.

She should have known better. There were always that tone, those jokes. It's not natural, they said. It's not normal. And the looks they shared when they thought she didn't notice.

Looking down at her shoes now, she smiled to herself. She should have known.

She found her father in the basement, his feet hanging just a little too high to reach the ground below him. Her mother disappeared a few days later, leaving her to wake up alone in a practically empty house with nothing but that cold body for company. So she walked.

Pulling her legs up in front of her, hugging her knees, she blew warm smoke out of her nose like a dragon, watching it crystallize on the surface of her sleeves. It felt warmer now, quieter too. Drawing a deep breath, she decided to rest here for a bit, only until she stopped shivering. Then, she would walk to the next collection of lights up ahead to the right. It couldn't be more than a few miles. Her pink Converse couldn't fail her now.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as I write most of my original things, as a stream of consciousness, stemming from the opening sentence. I never know where it takes me, this time, it took me out into the rain.
> 
> I didn't even know she had a girlfriend.


End file.
